This is the offical myspace page of Rhys Chatham, but myspace is so cluttered with ads and so ugly, that I no longer use it for social networking. I just keep a presence hear in case anyone wants to hear my music on it.
I delete 99% of friend requests as they come from bands that have no link whatsoever to what I do, they just want a lot of friends to impress their booking agents, I guess.
If you really want to friend me, write me a private email on myspace explaining who you are, and I'll do it.
Here is a quick bio, for those who might be interested:
Hi. My name is Rhys. I'm a classically-trained composer from New York. I was born in Greenwich Village in Manhattan. And yes, this is really me. I'm not dead yet. At least not the last time I took my pulse: this is the official site.
After I got out of conservatory, I was a concert producer at a place in Soho called the Kitchen, I founded the music program and produced people like Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Gavin Bryars, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Micheal Nyman, Pauline Oliveros, Steve Reich on the avant garde side of things, and Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and Fred Frith on the alternative rock side of things.
After a number of years as a concert producer, I got tired of producing other people's music. I had heard an early concert of the Ramones and was inspired by it, so I picked up electric guitar and made a composition called GUITAR TRIO in 1976/77 which combined the minimalist tendencies within which I had been working with a rock instrumentation and musicians.
I was introduced to electronic music and composition by Morton Subotnick in the late 60s, in the early seventies I studied composition with La Monte Young and played in Tony Conrad's early group, these guys are, along with Terry Riley, the founders of American minimalism; so Guitar Trio is a bit like, Tony Conrad meets the Ramones!
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After working with 3 electric guitars, I upped the number to 6, and finally in 1989 to 100 electric guitars with a piece called AN ANGEL MOVES TOO FAST TO SEE, which I have been touring around the world with ever since. It was composed in France, where I had moved to that year. So I have been touring with an orchestra of 100 electric guitars for over 17 years now.
A recent piece in this genre was commissioned last year (2005) by the City of Paris for an all night festival called La Nuit Blanche. It was for 400 electric guitars. We played a piece called A CRIMSON GRAIL MOVES TOO FAST TO SEE at Sacre Coeur in Paris, the concert lasted 12 hours, we had a blast! .
A new version of CRIMSON was commissioned by the Licoln Center Out of Doors Festival last year, but unfortunately the performance was rained out. Plans are in the works for doing it again in August 2009, date to be announced next week.
Concurrent with all this, I started playing trumpet in 1983, and after ten years of learning how to play the damn thing, released my first record with me as a trumpet player on a UK label called Ninja Tune.
I switched to trumpet because I was losing my hearing playing guitar; also I was interested in jazz. My training on trumpet is completely in the jazz tradition, when I practice at home I play over bebop changes. But when I play out it tends to be over drum n bass or whatever current trend has come out in the context of electronica that sounds cool.
When I switched to trumpet, I kept all my electric guitar distortion devices, so my trumpet sounds quite close to a distorted electric guitar.
Aside from performances with my 100+ guitar orchestras, I am currently touring a version of GUITAR TRIO for between 6-10 electric guitars, el. bass and drums. I come to the city the piece is being performed in and work with the local luminaries of the town I am playing in and we mount a performance. You can get links to some of the performances by checking out my blog on myspace or going to http://www.rhyschatham.net
I have just finished a solo project with me on el. trumpet and guitar, which I plan to tour soon in collaboration with the video artist Angie Eng. I'll be posting snippets of the performance on this site shortly.
I currently live in Paris, France.
(This site last mucked about with on 3 December 2011)
